Books: Great Man's Plaything

This novel is the work of a high-spirited Hussar officer of 23, caught
temporarily between campaigns. It would not be uncharitable to say that
its author should adopt some other line of work. This, to the great
benefit of history and humanity, is what the author did.

Wittily, the publishers have decorated the book jacket of this literary
curiosity with the novelist's figure in its more recent framesitting
before his goldfish pond at Chartwell, with his back firmly turned. The
frontispiece shows the face of a younger, less imposing man, who had
just become...